


pyre

by astratic



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, Gen, Suicidal Thoughts, Temporary Character Death, The Adventure Zone: Balance, Wakes & Funerals, as hard as she tries lup is not really the "responsibility" type, basically this is a rumination on how you process temporary death, is it weird to tag taako if hes dead the whole time, lup pov, mild descriptions of wounds, temporary suicide?, the whole crew is there they just dont say much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-10 09:43:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17423504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astratic/pseuds/astratic
Summary: A real funeral for an elf would last for weeks and the mourning for years; here, that would be pointless since this death is fleeting.





	pyre

**Author's Note:**

> this is a sort of love letter to [ask a mortician](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi5iiEyLwSLvlqnMi02u5gQ) on youtube. death is the ultimate permanence—so much so that its basically synonymous with finality and endings. nevermore, you know, until... 8 months from now.

You've carried your brother piggy-back before, but not as dead weight.   
  
You almost feel guilty, doing this. You're wasting energy you should be using to protect yourself, he'd say. You could cast levitate, but something feels wrong about dragging his body back to the ship floating, like a party balloon—and anyway, you're down to two spell slots. You can't bring yourself to leave him, though. You know you're being stupid, but something in you can't seem to shake off death even if it's temporary.   
  
Static comes through your stone of farspeech, and you look up to see a clearing in the forest ahead—the thick magic aura had been blocking communication for a while. You break into a clumsy jog, keeping Taako's body balanced on your back.   
  
When you reach the break in the trees, you tug the stone out of its sachet at your waist. "Hello? Lup to Starblaster? I don't fuckin' wanna walk all the way back to camp. Please come get me."   
  
You hear Lucretia's voice come through in response, but it's so broken up in static that you can't tell anything she's saying.   
  
You sigh, looking up to the gaps in the treetops, "Nothing can be easy, can it."   
  
\---   
  
You arrange your brother seated neatly against a fallen log, and then pat the top of his head. "Watch my stuff," you command the corpse, and then dig deep into your rough-and-tumble mid-sixties for the tree-climbing skills you're sure you can't have forgotten when you became a stuffy academic.   
  
It's harder than you remember, but maybe it's that the air here isn't quite what you're used to breathing, and the branches are further apart—and, oh yeah, you just trekked through the woods for a half hour carrying 150 pounds of dead weight on your back. Still, you make it about sixty feet up before you get a little too confident and step on a limb that cracks out from under your weight and leaves you dangling.   
  
"Fuck! Shit, dammit—" you almost let go. Right now, it seems easier; you wouldn't have to bury your brother's corpse that way…wouldn't have to process his death if your own came forty minutes later. You grit your teeth and find footing, clambering the rest of the way up into the crown of the tree and hoisting yourself up to straddle a solid crook against the trunk.   
  
You look down and shake your head. It would be a stupid way to go, you think. You might not even die at this height—at least not immediately. You can see Taako from where you're sitting, but you can't see the blood or his crushed ribcage. He looks lost in thought, like if you called his name he might blink up at you in a daze.   
  
Your stone crackles to life suddenly, jolting you out of this thought.   
  
"Lup! —ere are you! We—rying to contact you—hours!"   
  
"Yeah, I had to climb a damn tree to get a signal!"   
  
"—tree? Lup, where are you? Taak—not answe—either!"   
  
"I'd give up on that one for now, Luce. He's not doing so hot. I'm in the middle of some fuckoff magic forest that's jamming my signal and dampening my spells. I'm one brother down with only two spell slots to go, three-ish miles due south of the ship."   
  
"—ay where you are—fly over, an—end up a signal! U—rstand?"   
  
"Stay in the tree, you'll fly over, I'll send up a signal. Copy."   
  
"We—there as soon a—ossible."   
  
"Hurry up; my ass hurts."   
  
\---   
  
It's about ten minutes later when you see the silver hull of the Starblaster glinting over the treetops, as if sailing on waves of greenery. You quickly pull your wand out of the waistband of your pants and shoot off an impressive fireball into the air.   
  
The clearing isn't nearly big enough to land the ship, so you have to make a sort of sling with a spare tarp and some rope to get Taako up to the bay.   
  
Magnus and Barry watch soberly as you untie the ropes once the bay door is closed.   
  
You're not sure what to do, now. You know he'll come back—you've died once already, and of course so have some of your teammates. This is the first time you've had to face the loss of your brother, though, and it feels different.   
  
"Lup—" Barry says behind you, but you hold up a hand to stop him.   
  
"Please," you say over your shoulder, "can you leave for a bit? I need to be alone."   
  
"Oh—" you hear Barry shuffling nervously, "Okay." You listen as the tapping of their feet retreats down the hallway and up the steps to the deck.   
  
You press your hand over your mouth and try to control your breathing. Honestly, you hadn't really thought it would hit you this hard, considering you dragged him lifeless about a quarter mile through the woods already. But the stillness and safety of the ship makes the wound in his side look more jagged—the brown of his skin more ashen. In the refuge of home, the magnitude of the loss feels suddenly unbearable, and somehow it doesn't matter in this moment that he'll be back in 8 months; you are staring the shell of him in the face right now.   
  
You put your hand on his cheek, and it's already getting chilly. You take his face in your hands and press your forehead against his.   
  
"I'm sorry," you say, though you aren't sure what for.   
  
You pull him against you, burying your face in his hair, and you cry: clumsy, hiccuping sobs that seem out of place even as you feel like you're drowning in grief.   
  
"You're such a fucking idiot," you sob, letting your voice crack apart finally, "Leaving me to clean up your mess. Like always."   
  
You kiss the top of his head and then let go, placing him back down in the folds of the tarp. You pull a handkerchief out of your bag and wet it with water from your canteen, using it to clean the blood and dirt from his face. You place a rolled shirt from your bag beneath his chin to hold his mouth closed.   
  
You hum while you work, an elven funeral song that you only half remember from the death of your aunt. A real funeral for an elf would last for weeks and the mourning for years; here, that would be pointless since this death is fleeting. You can't help but grieve, though, and you wonder what the appropriate reaction would be, between the two extremes: elven death is a big deal. Right now, you feel silly for even crying when he'll be back at the end of the year.   
  
Davenport lands the ship back where you all had set up camp, and Magnus and Barry help you dig a grave after a quick debriefing.   
  
Taako's body is stiff by the time you bring him outside, so Lucretia helps you, laying him in a sheet and carrying it like a hammock. You don't change his clothes, because you know he'll be annoyed if you waste any of them on a token funeral. Instead, you gather wildflowers and tuck them against his side, covering the wounds. His braid is mussed and tangled, so you brush it out and redo it, tucking in more flowers along the length of it and around his face. When you're finished, you gaze at your twin for a long moment.   
  
Lucretia has pulled out her journal as you do this, her pen scratching over the page. Her voice breaks gently through your reverie, "What are you thinking?"   
  
You blink, "What?"   
  
She shrugs, "I know this is hard for you. It is for all of us."   
  
"It's pointless to be upset. It's like it's not even real."   
  
Lucretia hums in contemplation and turns her journal so you can see: it's a sketch of the scene. You, bent over and braiding your brother's hair, surrounded by flowers.   
  
"It is real," she says, "And you feel how you feel. We aren't really equipped to process death as a temporary thing, I think. It's written way down in the base of your biology to see a stiff corpse as something horrifically final. Even though you know, empirically, that it's temporary, it doesn't quite reach those feelings. Especially for an elf, I'd imagine, since death is so much less frequent."   
  
"Well," you shrug, touching your brother's cheek, "I've known more than my share of dead elves."   
  
Lucretia makes a contrite noise, "Even still."   
  
You brace your hands on your knees as you get to your feet, stiff from sitting hunched over. "I think," you say, stretching your arms over your head, "I'm going to shower before we bury him. Don't let them move him until I get back." You motion to the boys, finishing the digging some yards away.   
  
"Alright," says Lucretia, "We'll be waiting."   
  
\---   
  
You have to wash your hair twice to get all the grime out. You wanted to do this before you bury Taako so that you don't have to wash him away immediately afterward—that's another elven funeral tradition you barely remember: the immediate family doesn't bathe for 24 hours after lighting the pyre. You're not burning the body, of course: building a proper funeral pyre takes days—and anyway, burning the trees here seems risky.   
  
You pull on a crisp uniform when you finish your shower: white shirt, tan pants, and bright red robe.   
  
Outside, Davenport has brought out a bottle of brandy and is sharing it with the rest of the crew while Merle attempts to lead them in a hymn to Pan. It makes you smile a little; he's not having much success.   
  
Lucretia has been dutifully keeping watch just as you left her, her journal held close against her chest. You put your hand on her shoulder, getting to your knees at her side in front of your brother. You study him for a minute and then lean forward and remove his earrings; he'll want those back. You kiss his cold forehead and then sit back, "Okay."   
  
The others help you fold the sheet around him like a shroud as you secure it with twine you brought from the ship. Magnus and Barry take him awkwardly to the hole they've dug, stiff as he is. You can't help but wince as the body hits the ground with a _thud._   
  
Your captain puts a glass of brandy in your hand, and you realize everyone is waiting for you to say something.   
  
You clear your throat, and what comes out is that song, the one from your aunt's funeral. You've never considered yourself a good singer, and you falter after a few lines because you just can't remember—and then Lucretia joins in, hooking her arm with yours, the clear notes of her voice mingling with your uncertain ones and lifting them into the air. The song is about the sun, characterizing it as a flame that burns away pain and fear and equating it to the pyre—it's for an elf who died young, like your aunt.   
  
When the song ends, everyone stands silently for a minute, gazing down into the grave. Magnus is weeping, of course. Barry pats him on the shoulder.   
  
You raise the glass into the stillness, "Thanks, everybody." You knock it back immediately, relishing the burn. You grab a handful of dirt and toss it in the grave, and everyone else follows suit.   
  
You initially try to help fill the hole, but Magnus insists you sit after the day you've had. Normally you'd argue, but you really are wiped, so you take a seat on a crate and nurse another glass of brandy while you watch Magnus work.   
  
Lucretia comes to sit beside you, sketching again. This time it's Taako with his hair full of wildflowers, but alive and smiling.   
  
"How do you know that song?"   
  
Lucretia keeps drawing as she answers, "Oh, it was research for a book. I've never attended a proper elven funeral, but it's a beautiful song."   
  
You squint at the sky; the sun is setting, streaking it with greens and purples and trimming the clouds with fire. Something in your core feels like it's burning, and it's not just the brandy.   
  
"It still hurts."   
  
"It's going to."   
  
"I watched him die."   
  
Lucretia closes her journal and looks at you for a long moment, and you feel tears welling in your eyes in spite of yourself.   
  
"He was so scared," you whisper as if it's a dangerous secret, "I told him it stops hurting and you wake up as soon as it's over, but he—he was scared to die. _I_ was scared."   
  
She pulls a handkerchief from her pocket and offers it to you. You take it.   
  
"We're all scared," she says, "I think that's normal. The way we experience death—it's unnatural, but it's still death. We're still scared, and we still grieve, and we're doing the best we can. You're doing the best you can, Lup."   
  
"When I was climbing that tree, I almost fell. I almost—let myself. I didn't tell Dav that in my debriefing. Just felt tempting, in the moment: running away. Running away from the responsibility of getting home, of—of grieving, figuring out what the hell I'm meant to do without Taako. I dunno. I dunno why I didn't."   
  
Lucretia sets down her journal and hooks her arm through yours again the way she did when you two were singing. "I'm glad you didn't," she says, "It'd be boring around here with both of you missing."   
  
\---   
  
You get up early, and it's chilly, so you bake. You aren't sure what else to do.   
  
You make cinnamon rolls and leave most of them out on the counter for the crew members you hear just stirring in their rooms. You take two outside to the patch of disturbed earth and sit, eating in silence.   
  
"This would piss you off," you say after several minutes, laughing in spite of yourself, "These are your favorite, and I'm just sitting here eating them over your corpse. How rude of me."   
  
The dirt doesn't answer.   
  
"I'll make you some when you get back."   
  
You finish the first roll and break a piece off the second.   
  
"I'd leave this one here as like a sentimental gesture, but wasting it would piss you off more. They're really good."   
  
You finish the second roll and clean stray sugar off the plate with your finger, licking it. You contemplate the tufts of new grass just beginning to reclaim the grave.   
  
"I'm missing my other half, Taako. Where are you?"   
  
\---   
  
The crew of the Starblaster collectively holds their breath around you as threads of light come streaming onto the deck and tangle around the six of you before converging and weaving your brother back together at your side.   
  
He immediately collapses.   
  
You lurch forward to catch him, and he's hyperventilating, grabbing at his chest, and you say, "Hey! Taako, darling, it's okay. You're okay. You're safe."   
  
He's trembling and clinging to you when he realizes everyone is watching and rushes to compose himself, clearing his throat loudly.   
  
"What's good, fools? Miss me?"   
  
You don't want to let go of him.   
  



End file.
